Pub closures

Time for a "putting things into perspective" post. On the topic of disappearing pubs.

Things soon get hyped up. Especially when newspapers get involved. They love throwing around terms like "unprecedented" and "never before". It applies to more than just the beer worrld, but I'm limiting myself. To just pubs.

"Pubs closing at an unprecedented rate." That's the current refrain. But how true is it? I just happen to have the figures for the number of pubs in England and Wales for the period 1900 to 2004. Let's take a look at them, shall we?

In 1900 there were 102,189 pubs in England and Wales. That's the time when local magistrates were actively trying to reduce the number of pubs. You can see just how successful they were. By 1920 there were just 83,432, a drop of 18,757. On average, just over 2.5 pubs closed every day throughout that 20 year period. While at the same time the population increased by 16%. While in 1900 there were 298 people per pub, by 1920 it was 422. So, taking into account population changes, the number of pubs fell by a massive 41%.

After 1920, the number of pubs continued to decline, but at a much slower rate. The nadir was reached in 1972, when just 63,732 remained. That's slightly more than one a day.



The next bit is what surprised me. The number of pubs then began to increase again. In 2004, the last year I've got figures for, it was up to 81,455. An increase of 17,723, a rate of 1.5 new pubs per day. All the pub losses from the 1920's to the 1970's had bee wiped out. I was gob-smacked when I realised that the number of pubs had been increasing all through my drinking life.

This graph makes the long-term trends very clear:



It's sad that many landlords are losing their businesses and their homes. But let's not get hysterical. The rate of closures isn't "unprecedented". Painful, but not unprecedented.

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1877 Whitbread KKK

Another K Ale this week. A Strong Ale, I suppose you would call it.

And when they say Strong Ale, they mean it. This has a OG of over 1080, yet it was brewed as a draught beer. Victorians probably saw it as a session beer. But they were made of stronger stuff than us moderns.

In the middle of the 19th century, London brewers had two parallel lines of Ales. X Ales and K Ales. They were essentially the same, except the K Ales were much more heavily hopped. Initially there were X, XX, XXX, XXXX and KK, KKK, KKKK. These were pared down and by 1900 brewers like Whitbread and Barclay Perkins brewed just X, KK, KKK and sometimes KKKK.

Here's Kristen with all the brewy details . . .


1877 Whitbread KKK
Whit 1877 KKK...I love this one as I've made it before numerous times. It was one of the first I did with the KKK and KK. Just a little different. The one is actually really special b/c the logs aren't the normal Whitbread ones. This one seems to stem from the head brewers personal log book. Much more simply laid out but missing a lot of the detail that the whole logs have. So, the volumes are kind of screwy but the end result is the same. This beer has a massive quantity of what is called 'return' which accounts for a lot of the volume. The return is basically spare water thats ran through the grist to get everything out of it. When you think about this beer it tastes very very similar to the Thomas Sykes ale just a little big lower in alcohol.

So...on to the recipe then.

Grist and such
One of the simplest grain bills. A pale malt and simple invert #1. I very much like Maris otter for this as it gives probably the best character for strong English beers. I guess you could swap in some Golden Promise but it will lend a biscuit character. Stay away from Halcyon, Optic and any US if at all possible. For the invert, make your own using turbinado or just use Lyles Golden syrup...its close enough.
Mash
If you are paying attention to numbers at all you'll see that the apparent attenuation is only 60%. We'll that all comes from here. The mash temp is really high at 156F so if you feel like your are uncomfortable drop it down to 153...you'll miss a lot of this beers character. There are plenty of dextrins in this sucker to make it very robust.

Hops
Nearly 6lb of hops per barrel! Holy trucker...this thing has so many hops in it I guarantee that the IBU count is off. They are all very very fresh and all very very English. Nothing is listed for dry hopping but I would assume that there would be at least 2-4oz per bbl so go ahead and experiment.

Fermentation
Quite an extended fermentation for the time in that it took about 7 days. It starts quite low at 61F but then gets up to 71F quite quickly. With the Whitbread yeast there will be a bunch of fruity esters and just a touch of higher alcohol from the temperature.





Tasting notes
Beaming golden orange. Honey-glazed sugar cookies. Ginger spice and a touch of Angostura. Pears, apples and peaches. Hints of alcohol pepper but not hot. Luscious, rich and velvety on the back end. Drying hop resins and a punch of bitterness keeps the sweetness from being cloying.

Bohemian lager in 1886

I've just remembered. This is supposed to be a summer of lager, not a summer of merchandising. Time to plunge my hand into the gravity table pot and see what I pull out.

Let's see what this is. Not too fat and not too sticky. Should do. It even illustrates a point. Perfatasterrific. Here we go then, some Bohemian lagers analysed in 1886.

Exactly what point might that be? I hear you ask. The Czech love of výčepní pivo. Schankbier if you're a German-speaker. Or desítka. The lagers below are unusually weak for everywhere except the Czech Republic. Just 9º or 10º Plato. And under 4% ABV. You wouldn't have found any lagers that weak in Bavaria.

The attenuation is surprisingly low, too. For a majority, it's less than 70%. My guess is that today it would be closer to 80%.

I wonder how many of the breweries still exist?


More lager fun on the way.

Unless I change my mind again.

Tacky Merchandise

Not enough of you have been buying. It's time to tart my Shut up about Barclay Perkins range of Tacky Merchandise again.

Who can live without a mouse mat depicting a Barclay Perkins FSt log from 1850? I know I couldn't. That's why I've ordered a round dozen - one for each of my computers, plus a spare for each. For those wanting a more modern look, there's a mat with a 1936 IBS and RNS log. Any beer geek would love to own one of these high-quality, limited edition pieces of tack. Sorry, valuable collectables. Homebrewers - find inspiration as you answer your emails.




Or how about a Colditzer Schwarze Sau mug? Colditz, the DDR and a black pig. It literally has it all. Using the colours of the German flag, it's also vaguely patriotic. If you're German. (Which everyone else in my family is.) It looks so good, I might even buy one myself.

Visit the Shut up about Barclay Perkins Tacky Merchandise shop today and buy yourselves a little piece of history.

North American Shop

European shop



make custom gifts at Zazzle

First Guinness of summer

It's a sure sign of summer . . . hang on, I've already done that . . . more than once.

The first Guinness of summer needed to be documented. That's what I thought. But I am pretty weird. So maybe you disagree. About the first Guinness needing to be documented. You doubtless agree about the weird bit.

It looks lovely, doesn't it? The Guinness to the right.Behind it is our garden. It looks more like a jungle every year. Plants clutter it much like books litter our house.

Sun and Guinness. They go together like a . . . . Can anyone think of a word that rhymes with Guinness?

Arnhem Openlucht Museum

And the day started so badly. With Lexie closing himself in his room, protesting "I'm not going." "Brilliant", I thought. The day was barely started and already spoiled.

Dolores eventually talked him around. I'd already got past the "I'll smash all your toys with a hammer" phase. There's nowhere really to go after that.

For once the NS is doing something I applaud: upgrading Amsterdam Zuid station. Many trains now avoid overcrowded Centraal and call at Zuid instead. That's brilliant for us. Bus 15 to Zuid (when it turns up) only takes 10 minutes. The 2 tram to Central takes half an hour.

Here I am getting ahead of myself. I forgot to mention why we were travelling. Cheap train tickets from Blokker. They sell them a few times a year. You can travel anywhere in Holland (at the weekend) for just 10 euros. But they're only valid for a limited time. We'd only got this weekend or next to use them up. ("I'll take the 30 euros off your account", that was another futile threat I'd made to Lexie.)

There are direct trains from Zuid to Arnhem. It only takes an hour, despite Arnhem almost being in Germany. Very handy. The Dutch train system still isn't bad. The service runs every half hour.

What did we talk about on the train? Whether Stalin was in heaven, that came up. And The Crusades. The age of the earth. I'm sure I was right. It is 7,000 years, isn't it? Andrew came up with the ridiculous figure of 2 billion years.

Lexie had forgotten his opposition to the trip even before we got on the train. By the time we reached Arnhem there was just one thing on his mind: bacon. The ready availability of bacon sandwiches is the root of Lexie's love for Britain. "Let's go to the Albert Heijn." He's noticed they sell bacon and egg sandwiches.

On the number 3 bus to the museum we sat behind a group of weird South Africans. (Tattoos and purple-died hair don't really work for women over 50.) But at least we'd know when to get off. They were clearly headed the same place as us.

Before we go any further, I really hadn't looked this up before leaving home. I remembered reading something in the PINT magazine about them brewing in the Openlucht Museum. So the first thing I looked for on the map was a brewery. My god, there it was: brouwerij. "Let's get on the tram." It's never difficult to get the kids onto a tram. The brewery was just one stop down line.

I'd expected a few old tubs where maybe they did a bit of home-brewing now and again. The shiny new kit was a bit of a shock. What with the little lab and the sacks of malt, it was clearly a serious brewery. They were giving out free samples. Of quite a nice Witbier. "That's nice." Can't get higher praise than that from Dolores.

There was an old brewery, too. That wasn't for brewing in. You know what it reminded me of? The communal brewery in Windischeschenbach. The one they still brew Zoigl in.

Dolores asked the nice man giving out the samples "Do any of the cafes in the museum sell your beer?" "Yes, the one over the road. Just ask for beer." What were we waiting for. I felt like Digby Chicken-Caesar. "To the café!"

I haven't explained what an open-air museum is, have I? I'm doing this all in the wrong order. It's where they take historical buildings that would otherwise have been demolished and move them to a park. That's about it really. They like them in Sweden.

The café was very pleasant. Nice garden. And, doing the museum bit 100%, only sold period drinks. A bit rough on the kids, who wanted to rot their teeth with cola, great for me. There was a single beer tap selling a pils-like sort of beer. From the brewery, of course. It wasn't bad. Especially when Dolores wandered off with the kids and I had time for a second beer in peace.

After that we went around the rest of the museum. Then got the train home. I've truncated the last few hours. You're not really interested in textile workers cottages, are you?

I almost forget one of the most important pieces of information. The name of the brewery:

’t Goeye Goet
Schelmseweg 89,
6816 SJ Arnhem.
Tel: 026-3576111
Fax: 026-3576147
info@openluchtmuseum.nl
http://www.openluchtmuseum.nl

Another sure sign it's summer. I've started writing about travels with my kids.

New pub guide

I've written a new pub guide this week. Not that you'll get to see it. It's a private guide to Fränkische Schweiz.

I've probably bored you with hundreds of times before. That's how most of my guides started out. As my own personal guides. Having them as web pages was a good way of making sure they didn't get lost. And that I could see them from anywhere in the world.

As it's really is just for me (and Mike, I suppose) it includes some rather specific bits of information. Like weekend bus timetables. And maps of the places I plan visiting (Pretzfeld, Ebermannstadt, Muggendorf and Gößweinstein.

One pleasant surpise as I planned. I can get to Hohenschwärz for Sunday dinner. At the wonderful Brauerei Hofmann. One of my favourite places on the planet. Pork, dumplings and a gallon or so of Hofmann Export sure sounds like heaven to me.

Annafest guide

I know I've already told most of you this, but for the newcomers: I'm going o the Annafest this year. The best sentence since "You've been accepted for Czech summer school".

Compulsive behaviour. My speciality. [Why do English(US) spell checkers think it can't be a noun?] You read this blog. You must have twigged where I'm going. Especially if you've bothered to read the title.

I had to write a guide. The first in many years. One reason I started my blog was to tart my website (http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/) Website neglect was the real outcome. I used to bang out a new guide every month.

God. I'm getting dull. Shouldn't I be reminding you that the next hymn is number 289. "For those in Peril on the Sea"? Am I totally fwoppeled?

Going to the Annafest? You should be. At least for the next couple of years. Then I'll start moaning about all you bloody tourists ruining it. Learn to love lager. I did.

If you are woman/man/person enough to go to the Annafest, you might find this handy. Pub guides to Bamberg and Forchheim, stuff about the local breweries, and a bit about the Kellerberg. Just look at that glass of Neder Export. That's what I want to call breakfast in my retirement.

And it's free. [The guide, not Neder Export. That costs 2 euros or more for a half litre. Those robbing bastards.]

You can get it [the guide) here:

http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/Annafest_Guide.pdf

Yet more C Ale

Reader Geoff Ikin has very kindly sent me some label images of various C Ales. They don't help much about the meaning and origin of C Ale, but they look pretty. I'm a sucker for old labels.

Of course, C could just be a random letter, like Worthington's "E". There were basically three systems of brewhouse code.

1. The "normal" system: X, XX. XXX, PA, KK, KKK, P, S, SS, SSS.
2. The Bass system: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, P2, P3, P4 with 1 being the strongest, 6 the weakest and a P prefix designating a Porter/Stout.
3. The Worthington system: A, M, S, J, E

Maybe Boddingtons can provide a clue. They used these codes for their beers:

A Pale Ale
BB Mild Ale
CC Strong Ale

The JW Lees C Ale is also billed as a Strong Ale. That might explain what it is, if not where the hell the name came from.

There are a couple of other pieces of evidence that point to a Strong Ale. Groves & Whitnall discontinued theirs during the war and brought it back in 1950. Many strong beers disappeared during the war. Also, theirs was bottle-conditioned. Lower-strength beers were usually artificially carbonated.

Any other ideas are very welcome. I don't think I've come up with a very robust theory yet. I wonder if the brewing records still exist for any of these breweries? As Lees are still in business, there's a good chance they might have kept their old logs. Anyone have a good contact within the brewery?

Finding a brewing record would at least settle the nature of the beer, if not its origin.

Shameless self-promotion

There's nothing worse than a purportedly independent beer writer using his work to promote his own financial interests. Shameless self-promoting bastards. Pardon my French.

Integrity is my greatest asset. How could I compromise that for money? I'd be crzay. Your trust in my impartiality underpins this blog. I dare to back up my words with hard, cold facts. Can you say that Mr. XXXX [original letters blanked out]?

That's why I'm delighted to announce my own line of Tacky Merchandise. Designed to enrich the left hand side of the Pattinson family. It's a long story. And my daily ration of St. Bernardus Abt is drunk. A bit like me.

This is what people are saying about Shut up about Barclay Perkins Tacky Merchandise:

"Low-quality, expensive, poorly-designed, exploitative crap."
"Like Stalin - but worse."
"Have these bloggers no shame?"
"Offensive in a totally charmless way."
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"Life is no longer worth living."

You could experience the same ecstasy (my products contain no illegal substances of any kind) by purchasing Shut up about Barclay Perkins Tacky Merchandise.